Never Mind The Center

At Calculated Risk, the site that's catnip for financial and economic data wonks like myself operated by Bill McBride, I spotted a post entitled "Foreclosures: Movin' On Up!" about the increasing number of mortgage defaults in the "million-dollar and up slice of the [real estate] market" as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

The number of homes in the $1-million-and-up slice of the market that have become bank owned has tripled in the second quarter compared with the same period three years earlier in Los Angeles County, which has the majority of Southern California's high-priced REO houses. And the trend has shown little sign of slowing, according to data from ForeclosureRadar.

"We believe the high end is ready to fall apart," [Bryan Ochse of Media West Realty in Burbank, which works with 11 lending institutions and specializes in REO sales] said.

The freefall continues. We've plunged into a cloudbank; it's difficult to say whether you're falling at all, when you can't see the ground. People around us are shouting that we're hovering now, that everything's fine.

Yeah; right, good. I'm only a Dog, and if I can't get a parachute, I'll settle for a really big tablecloth.

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